Alternatives to Kingslea stays sought

Press, 11 May 1989, Page 14

Alternatives to Kingslea stays sought

By

DEBORAH McPHERSON

Teen-age offenders may be given a chance to avoid Social Welfare corrective institutions, if a planned diversion team at the courts is successful.

Staff at the Kingslea Resource Centre and the Social Welfare Department are hoping to establish three full-time workers at the Children and Young Persons Court, who would work to provide judges with alternative community options for supervision. Kingslea’s director, Miss Marion Judge, said the new service would attempt to reduce the number of teenagers remanded to Kingslea. “We are not talking about young people who have been charged with violent crimes, but about young offenders whose sentence is not likely to include a stay at Kingslea anyway,” she said. “There are a lot of young people who un-

necessarily get in with a criminal element by coming into residence.” A working party was still “nutting out” how such a diversion team would work. It would need to assure the courts the offenders would be well supervised, Miss Judge said. The team would be responsible to the resource centre’s new community alternative services programme — one of four new services under Kingslea’s restructuring as a combined girls’ and boys’ residency. Miss Judge said it was envisaged the diversion team would provide an alternative “tracking” or reporting system, similar to that demanded of adults on bail.

Instead of being sent to Kingslea on remand until their next court appearance, as was usual now, some teenagers could be kept occupied during the day.

Someone from the team could pick them up from school, check for truancy and discourage friendships with offending peers. The team would also have to keep in close contact with parents or guardians. The new philosophy was in line with the aims of the redrafted Children and Young Persons Bill before Parliament, which would require both the courts and Social Welfare to explore more positive options than institutional care.